Yes, if you want to call them candidates. That word seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting, here.
Were they better options? Probably. I personally was a fan of Stein. Were they available to us on any realistic level in our broken "democratic" system? No. Had I voted for her, my vote would have counted for nothing.
They had zero backing when thrown up against the two candidates that the very real and present two-party system pushed in front of us, and that was that.
Every time someone wants to whine about Harris supporting genocide, I feel like I'm talking to a bunch of bots who have never seen a US ballot, have no idea how our party system works and are incapable of comprehending the vast network of chicanery that results in two major parties drowning every other option we might actually want to vote for.
The illusion of a choice is not actually a choice, is it? So, at the time, the best plan was "NOT TRUMP AGAIN" leaving Harris as our strongest option _even though most of us did not agree with 100% of her policies_. We had a knife to our throat, and a knife at our back. We tried to get everyone on board with the knife at our back since, sure it would hurt, but at least it wouldn't kill us and we could work to move closer to a better solution.
Instead, we're now getting slit ear-to-ear because of impetuous fools who can't see past their own blind outrage.
We really have to shatter the bind. Every time someone buys into the two party system and votes against rather than for, we all lose. I'm not criticizing you, I am lamenting how toxic and horrible first past the post voting makes our elections.
I agree with you. Been shaking my fist about it since I cast my first vote. But I genuinely feel like an ant attacking a lawnmower. The machine just keeps going and barely notices our efforts. I was a Bernie supporter, too. Same deal although at least he's got street cred the media meat-grinder can't spin into something else. Still, I cast my vote and it mattered as much as a fart in the wind.
When you feel like that for a couple decades and you start to look for the best possible outcomes that everyone will actually agree to, things start to look really, really bleak. Again, it's a War of Attrition and historically speaking, the people with the most resources win those.
Rally. Protest. Please. I have no idea what else to do. I'd lead the damned charge in the revolution if I thought anyone would follow, but my experience has been the opposite. The liberals of the world all seem to hate each other just as much as the conservatives do, so I'll be dipped if they ever really come together on anything, these days.
I don't like my conduct in the earlier comments, but after being that guy who tried to tell everyone the two-party system has no power without us for so damned long, I am not going to sit idly and listen to someone accuse me of supporting genocide when I made the most rational choice I could have with what was presented while they did nothing, as though Gaza's horrifying reality is the only thing the American people have to worry about right now. We live in a zero-sum game, and I hate it, but that's it.
Forced candidate: "I promise to keep arming this genocidal apartheid state."
Voter: I will vote for you, because the only alternative that our party have allowed [0] a chance to win is even worse somehow.
Other voter: Hey, you know that candidate promised to continue to arm genocide, right?
Voter: Supporting her was the most rational choice. You whine. It feels like you're a bot. You don't understand the complex zero-sum game we are in. You, who I know nothing about, did nothing; while I voted. Also you're cynical and think you're morally superior.
Other voter: O-kay.
Like I said: 98% of America voted for a candidate who promised to arm genocide. We should be sanctioned by the world, and the only reason we aren't is because we threaten to either fuck their economy, ie [1], or literally invade them [2].
Stein actually aligns far better with the real opinions of the majority of the American people; on affordable housing, on healthcare, on the military industrial complex, on the environment, on taxing the rich, on fracking, on education, and indeed on arming genocide.
However, the entire political and media class united to smear her as a "Russian stooge". Despite a complete lack of evidence, American voters ate that slop up and asked for seconds. It still disturbs me, how easy they made that look.
A Senate investigation ran from 2016 to 2019, investigating Stein. They found absolutely nothing, and completely cleared her in 2019... But try and find a corporate media article which acknowledges this. Many Americans still believe it; like WMDs in Iraq, or the Earth being 6,000 years old.
Try and find a Democrat who stood up for her this entire time. Nope - accusing Harvard-educated Jewish doctor ladies of being Russian assets without a shred of proof didn't seem to bother anyone.
Democrats went to extreme and even illegal lengths to take Greens off the ballot everywhere they could, and then accused the Greens of never winning elections (not true btw [0, 1]).
The media refused to cover any of those Green wins, then smeared the Greens as only appearing for Presidential elections as a "grift". A grift! In a race where that same media presented *Donald 'TrumpCoin' Trump as a serious candidate!
Let's see who was grifting:
Harris raised more than a billion dollars, and received 48.3% of the vote.
Stein raised $2.7m, 370 times less, and received 1% of the vote; in other words, her campaign dollars were more than 7 times more effective than Harris' despite rabid media bias.
But you can't explain any of this to a Harris voter. The real problem, I believe, is that once you've been conned into actively supporting genocide and ethnic cleansing, you can't really acknowledge that and still think of yourself as a good person. So people just lash out instead with personal attacks. The ones above are about the mildest I've seen, to be fair; usually bringing up Harris' complicity in genocide gets you called an asshole. Go figure.
